I think they're making progress, but they still don't get it. They don't understand how to make or market great consumer products.
For the Pre, their marketing materials are all screwy and confusing. The device and UI are just complete ripoffs of the iPhone. With the (R) and (C) and TM icons everywhere, and by selling something called the "Palm(R) Touchstone(TM) PreTM Backplate Adapter," they are making themselves out to be a distant corporation.
You may criticise the branding and marketing, but I think the product's as close to the ideal as anyone on the market has managed to announce so far.
MMS? Check. Stereo Bluetooth? Check. Copy/paste? Check. Headphone jack? Check. Physical volume buttons? Check. Camera with flash? Check. Physical keyboard? Check. Exchange support? Check. Multitasking? Check. Wi-Fi? Check. Multitouch? Check. GPS? Check. Removable battery? Check. A decent web browser? Check. Decent looks? Check. Good UI? Check.
No obvious glaring flaws exist - admittedly it's missing video-calling, but I doubt many use it, and battery-life and price are still up in the air, but so far it looks pretty damn good. The fact it's CDMA-only and carrier tied is a bit of a shame, but they say a GSM version is going to appear in the rest of the world. One concern is whether applications will be developed for their platform, but that remains to be seen. I think the UI is above and beyond the iPhone's in many ways - the task switching and general lack of clutter is amazing and the cards analogy is inspired. The whole package just seems fantastic.
I'm with Halo, I haven't bought an iPhone because of the lack of keyboard, didn't buy a blackberry because the apps blew and the UI was annoying, and was waiting for Android v2 phones before taking Android seriously. The Pre is near ideal - keyboard, touch, beautiful layout, time tested base apps, and a great size for the pocket. And frankly the marketing is pretty slick - perhaps not geek slick, but it has total business appeal and a well trusted name. Now if only they'd ship sooner.
It happens that I used to interact with Palm marketing execs. I specifically recall the launch of the LifeDrive, a ridiculous $500 WiFi-enabled... electronic organizer. Even in 2005 it was pretty obvious that cell phones were going to replace PalmPilots. And yet a top Palm PR exec gleefully pointed a chart showing Palm's increasing dominance of the "PDA market."
The pitch was, literally, "It's got a card reader so you can grab the pictures off your digital camera without having to take your laptop on vacation!"
But the thing is... these people really believed in it. The Palm marketing folks -- at least the ones I met -- were all True Believers. They couldn't quite grasp why they got such bad press. They really REALLY believe in Palm.
Though, that said, I don't think ripping off Apple is necessarily a bad business strategy.
I think it might be just the right amount, in the nick of time.
The things this appears to do well are better than the iPhone's -- there appear to be fewer walls between data, and the Synergy stuff is a very nice touch. The OS is built on JSON data sharing, and the webapps are installed locally. For all the sorts of things I do with iPhone apps, a local browser w/local data would be sufficient. What's more, since lots of people are making custom iPhone webapps anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to go a bit further and make them Palm-native to boot.
Games are going to be a big question, however. CSS+JS? Hm.
> Games are going to be a big question, however. CSS+JS? Hm.
Yeah, that was my thinking as well. The phone and OS overall look superb, but I was wondering what would happen to games and other applications that just can't be written with HTML+JS. If they left it the way they have, The other thing is that by catering to web developers, they cut out a lot of traditional software developers who haven't or don't want to learn the whole web app system.
1. Yeah, games are probably out until flash gets on this thing. But frankly, the iPhone apps market looks today like what the Facebook apps market looked when it came out. People went in, wrote lots of shit applications (and a small number of good ones), and then the whole market died.
2. Which traditional software developers can't do HTML & Javascript? Frankly I think it's a better option than Objective-C or googleJava.
The widgets, gestures, etc., are all well & nice. But, the under-screen gesture area's a nice innovation. Nobody likes trying to read around their own fingers.
But I think what makes Palm so competitive with this is how good of a PDA it is.
Note: the calendar and notification systems are more advanced than what you get on the iPhone and Android in v1. They take better advantage of the available space, are better integrated, and probably (knowing palm's history) will require fewer clicks to do useful things. Palm's always done a good job in these areas, and the competition's been weak.
Also, the GPS application looks like a modern self-contained GPS, not the google-maps-with-a-dot version on the iPhone.
As for using HTML/JS, it's lowering the bar for people to develop, almost to the floor.
Finally, Palm's got a tired, but well-recognized leader name. Which, for enterprises, is a lot better than Apple or Google. I can see the Palm being the place where people go if/when Blackberry fails. The iPhone can stay an iPod-phone, for consumers, and the google phone a stillborn geek device.
They actually timed the various user interactions on different phones. I'm not sure of their methodology, but for what it's worth, the Palm Centro came out at or near the top for the organizer and messenging features (but not so well for the dialing features). Hopefully this bodes well for their future phones.
Is there a better technical description of WebOS around somewhere? It describes the OS is "windows based" on that link. I am curious if it will run regular Windows Mobile applications. Essentially, is WebOS a UI/usability layer on top of Windows Mobile?
<whine>CNBC has a million dollar stock investing challenge going on. A few weeks ago, I heard that Palm was announcing Something Big at CES. Off I went to 'buy' shares, only to find that the stock wasn't available in the game...</whine>
Thank you very very much for this link. I've sort of been waiting, but it's good to have a final word. "High profit margin" indeed - I can't believe they didn't drop the price in three years.
The question now is what do I buy. I want something the size of a Palm V, and has WiFi. I would very much prefer that it runs Palm Apps, and a GPS would be great, music would be nice too. I don't need a phone. Battery should last at least a week with the device off, I don't want something I have to recharge every day. (I understand that if I use WiFi a lot I'd need to, that's fine.)
Are there any PalmOS based devices? (Or maybe linux ones?) I really don't want the Windows based ones, even though I see some that would otherwise be good.
The G1 looks cool - but pricey. And every single device I look at has a phone. Am I the only person on the planet who doesn't need a cell phone?
Have you considered the iPod Touch? It's a significantly thinner iPhone, minus the phone and camera.
Not sure on battery life (my iPhone survives for at least four days if unused), it has no GPS, and is missing common PDA niceties like an SD card slot. But it is a modern platform with people making PDA-esque apps.
StyleTap license GarnetOS (aka PalmOS) and make an emulator for Windows Mobile. They claim to have an iPhone version in the works, but there's no recent news and I could see them having big problems with App Store approval. The GarnetOS folks also have a virtual Palm for the Nokia internet tablets in the works: http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/
We've glanced at Apple. From what I can tell, there's no IrDA (a near dealbreaker for use) and no Bluetooth SPP (serial port profile) support. Not sure--maybe there's a serial port on the dock connector? And I don't see any easy way to add 'em, as the I/O is pretty pathetic. Without a way to comm with our embedded hardware, it's not an option.
I guess we'll run the Palm Z22 until we can't get 'em, then buy or build something else.
What's odd is that Palm is essentially leaving quite a few good customers behind (that is, companies that develop software for the T|X and use it for a specific taks--yes the PDA is mostly dead as personal device). Say what you will about the T|X, but for many applications, it is perfect: it is mobile, software can "take over" the device, turning it into a single purpose machine, and it's unlikely to find its way into a user's pocket at the end of us (who wants a T|X?).
My employer is one who is being left behind, and we've had to move to Windows to find a replacement. Smart phones are tempting, but we know that many won't make it back at the end of their use.
